AUCKLAND CARPENTERS' “GO-SLOW” POLICY

Gisborne Herald, Volume LXXVI, Issue 22869, 12 February 1949, Page 6

AUCKLAND CARPENTERS' “GO-SLOW” POLICY

(P.A.) AUCKLAND, Feb. 11. Carpenters and joiners in the Auckland metropolitan area have declared a “go-slow” policy against those employers who are standing fast by the terms of the recent award issued by the Court of Arbitration. This decision was made at a stop-work meeting attended by over 1300 members in the Town Hall today. Twenty members of the Huntly subbranch, which had declared a one-day stoppage, attended the Auckland meeting.

Motions were carried to implement the unionists’ national conference decision to operate 'a “go-slow” policy against employers who failed to observe the conditions of the 1947 suburban work clause and who failed to pay a wage rate of 4s an hour; also demanding that the Labour Federation’s wage application be for an incense oi £2 a week.

The meeting demanded of the Government an amendment to the stabilisation regulations to permit wages to increase to the same degree as profits. After the carpenters had declared their “go-slow" policy, the president of the Auckland Master Builders’ Association, Mr J. M. Whittaker, issued a statement calling on builders “at all costs to resist an unwarranted attempt at extortion by direct action initiated by an unscrupulous minority.”

He said the constitutional course for the union to follow was to await the result of the application lodged for a general review of wage margins. Builders would need the support of the Government and other employers in any action they might decide to take at a meeting on Monday night. In the meanwhile he appealed to employers to resist the demands made by the employees.